Trolling

The BBQ Pit
1

I’d like to discuss trolling: what it is, what it isn’t, and why it’s bad. I’d be interested in hearing the opinions of everyone since I haven’t quite made up my mind about the whole thing yet. So, old timers, newbies, 'tweeners, mods, admins — everybody’s welcome to have a say.

Here’s what I think, and you tell me if you agree or disagree. Trolling is the deliberate posting of threads or posts for the sole purpose of raising a stink. In other words, as a logical assertion, I would say: Trolling implies pissing people off. (Other phrases are okay, too, like “causing chaos” or “getting under peoples’ skin”… whatever.)

Now, as everyone knows, if A implies B, it does not necessarily follow that B implies A. That is, pissing people off does not necessarily imply trolling. Just because a thread or post causes a ruckus doesn’t mean that it’s a troll. As I see it, if you open a thread and feel pissed off, misled, duped, or whatever, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve been trolled. Maybe you were just whooshed.

A person might make a point in a provocative way. Satire, sarcasm, invective, misdirection, and so forth — these can be rhetorical tools that make a point in some way other than straight narrative. Now, that’s not necessarily the case, as in this thread. There, I think the OP was a joke, and therefore didn’t belong in the Pit because joke threads aren’t allowed here. But I don’t think it was trolling, or even close to trolling.

A troll really doesn’t care to make a point. He gets his jollies by waiting under the bridge, jumping out to scare people, and then giggling to himself over it. His only point is, “Hey, look at me! Boo!” So, I think that’s why trolling is bad. It’s a waste of everybody’s time and the board’s bandwidth. People get their hackles up over nothing. And the only one who has any fun is the troll.

But I think that, for example, posting a quote and leaving it to the imagination — or even being misleading — as to whether George Bush or Bill Clinton said it is NOT trolling. The point being made is that sometimes people’s partisanship blinds them. Yes, it likely pisses someone off when they realize that they condemned the quote (or praised it) only to find out that their own guy (or their enemy) said it. But so what? Let them be pissed. They only helped to make the OP’s point. People who do not favor either Bush or Clinton enjoy the post as much as the OP.

But maybe I’m wrong about all this, and I’m open to hearing arguments to the contrary. What is trolling? What isn’t it? And why is it bad?

2

Why is this in the Pit and not in GD?

3

Um, because he’s a crazy asshole who wants some moderator to tell him that what he does ins’t actually trolling?

Either that, or it’s because he fully intends to launch into some bullshit rant in favor of Libertopia, which he knows he can’t defend in GD.

4

I was with you for the first three graphs and the first half of the fourth. Those are what I think of as trolling. But then you fell apart. Your first link looks like trolling to me. It was posted solely to mislead and raise a stink. I can see no other purpose for it. You also seem to have forgotten some of the details of the second reference. Those comments were intentionally misattributed, not merely left unattributed. If they had been unattributed or if we’re talking abstractly rather than about that specific incident, you might have a point.

The latter is more dishonest than actual trolling; but it served the purpose of troll in that it was posted solely to cause a stink. It wasn’t posted to make a point, it was posted to inflame.

5

I agree that being deliberately deceptive doesn’t necessarily imply being a troll. It does imply being a jerk, but that’s not the point.

A troll, as you say, is someone who’s being deceptive, outrageous, or otherwise inflammatory merely for kicks, rather than because the poster’s genuinely trying to defend their position.

This makes it pretty difficult to determine for certain when somebody’s trolling, and I agree with you that we shouldn’t leap to conclusions about it. In the long run, trolls generally end up exposing themselves by bragging about their trolling, with comments like "Well, I just like saying [A] and seeing all the liberals/rightards/PC folk/etc. get all upset about it :stuck_out_tongue: ".

Then we know they’re trolls and can take appropriate action.

6

Well, friend, after the two posts immediately succeeding your OP, I still have no idea why you spend so much time here, but anyhoo…

This is rather a question of honesty. One of the essential characteristics of the troll is that they do not genuinely believe what they are saying (or, at least, are not prepared to debate what they are saying in good faith).

Now, we all say things every day which we do not literally ascribe a >%50 probability of truth to. We must therefore ask whether some dishonesty or other is justified.

Ultimately, I consider that the only time dishonesty might be justified is with regard to the feelings of a specific person or group. We might say something plainly false for comic effect, to make people laugh. We might do it to bolster someone’s confidence. In each case there is clearly some intended positive sentiment, which is perhaps a useful phrase in judging a certain behaviour.

7

I have noticed that the mods are very quick to respond to what they percieve as a misleading OP. This form of trolling is very quick to result in mod action. This is what led to decembers banning, and a couple of recent OP’s have been locked because of it along with harsh warnings.

8

Yeah, but I mean, besides that.

9

I think this is a reasonable quesiton.

My feeling is that there’s no room for such rhetorical tactics in Great Debates. If we can’t start off with an assumption that someone is speaking plainly, then we’ve got to waste all kinds of time looking for rhetorical traps, and the forum turns into a game of gotcha instead of being a place for the rational exchange of ideas. I am thrilled that the mods take as much of a stand against dishonest rhetoric in Great Debates as they do.

The Pit doesn’t bill itself as a rational exchange of ideas; as such, such tactics don’t bother me nearly as much in the Pit. However, the mods have decided that joke threads are not allowed, and that satire threads must contain a link. Since danceswithcats’s thread didn’t contain a link and wasn’t seriously pitting anyone, it seems to be forbidden by the rules.

Were it up to me, joke threads would be allowed. But it’s not up to me.

Daniel

10

I was wondering myself about the “John Kerry charged with DUI” thread linked in the OP.

It certainly seems to have been something of a joke thread, and as such forbidden in the Pit, but when Lynn closed it she did so with an accusation of trolling, which i don’t agree with.

Despite my fervent hope that Kerry wins in December, i thought it was pretty funny, and the only people who are likely to get their backs up about a thread like this are people who fail to click on the link in the OP and who instead make the assumption that their guy is being slammed. Lesson 1: Read the fucking link!

There was not a single thing that was dishonest or untruthful about that thread—a guy called John Kerry was charged with DUI. Period. And the winking smiley at the end of the OP clearly demonstrated that the whole thing was not intended to be anything more than a bit of a laugh.

Now, it’s been noted many times that such joke threads are not allowed, so closing it was probably appropriate. But i’m with LHoD in thinking that threads liike this should be allowed. Are they allowed in MPSIMS? Because i think that thread would have been perfectly appropriate in that forum.

Are you talking about the same thread? The one entitled John Kerry charged with DUI? If so, that thread contains a link as the very first thing in the OP.

11

Sorry–I meant that it didn’t qualify under the satire exemption because it didn’t contain a link to the thread it was satirizing. Should’ve been clearer.

Daniel

12

This thread is obviously in the right place. The Pit is “This is the place for all complaints and other discussion regarding administration of the SDMB”.

In the linked thread Lynn calls the behaviour “trollish” not “trolling”. “Troll” is in any case a new term and not of fixed meaning. Lib refers to those under bridges. Others think it refers to a style of fishing.

The view of the admins seems to be that this place generates enough heat without people trying to demonstrate that sometimes things generate more heat than light. Although this example is rather lame, it’s a shame. But it’s a damn big board and the moderators have a tough enough time explaining themselves to us without having to pick convince us that they have determined that one poster’s disingenuous thread was a neat rhetorical device and the other’s was stirring up trouble for the sake of it.

13

I think I agree with Lib’s definition of trolling. Is there an official definition? I checked the rules, and didn’t see one.

But I don’t think danceswithcats’ Kerry DUI thread was trolling. Possibly a joke thread (and I agree with Daniel that I don’t see the objections to joke threads in the Pit), but the notion that Kerry had been busted for DUI is too absurd to be taken seriously. So the title was not particularly deceptive, IMO. So, a joke thread? OK, if the mods say so.

And, for the record, december’s famous “Was the President Lying?” was not trolling either. The attack on the misattribution of one quote to Hilary instead of Bill is a triviality, and made no difference to his point.

And, also IMO, the reason for the outrage against him (in that thread) was that he made his point so clearly. But he didn’t do it just to piss people off (although he did that). He embarassed the partisans, big time, and the only thing they could do was throw him to the Pit to be piled on (which many of you obediently did) and then eventually ban him.

But that’s not trolling. There is a difference between intentionally pissing people off and posting something that people disagree with. Practically anything anyone posts that is remotely pro-Bush is going to piss people off - but that’s not trolling.

Or, for that matter, anything Lib posts is going to piss off Demostyles, which is why the silly snot follows Lib around sniping at him. But that is not trolling.

IMO.

Regards,
Shodan

14

A sincere thank you to those who understood my OP. Apparently, MMV.

15

You forgot to mention he’s clearly an active philospher; but I can understand if you were trying not to be offensive.

16

Which reminds me, is knee-jerk epistemic relativism a synonymn for “trolling”?

17

That’s not an opinion; that’s a belief. As it happens, it’s a false belief. The reason for the outrage against him was that dishonesty in Great Debates, even dishonesty for a rhetorical purpose, taints the whole forum. He had a history of dishonest rhetoric, and that egregious example was the last straw.

At any rate, you’re a huge honkin’ partisan; were you embarrassed by his thread? If not, your second sentence above is false.

Daniel

18

This is much more egregious example. In this case, the OP started with an out-and-out falsehood (though I admit I suspected him of a milder semantic falsehood - it hadn’t occured to me that he was just lying).

The deliberate attempt to mislead and/or provoke an emotional response is critical to trolling. It contributes nothing to this board but a lot of shrieking and the mods are doing just fine at clamping down on it. So some guy named John Kerry got picked up for drunk driving? Ha-ha. Big joke, how clever of you to bring this to our attention. The thread deserved to get shut down for pure lameness.

19

Agreed. I think the ‘emotional response’ clause is key, because it covers one trick ponies and other “nuisance posters.”

20

Boy, that was a stupid post.

The first sentence contains a meaningless distinction. The second is an expression of opinion. The third is a false assertion. The fourth (the second part) is also false, since the example was not egregious.

And your logic is reversed in the last part. I was not embarassed,: therefore I am not a partisan. :slight_smile:

I didn’t realize you had fallen for december’s thread so hard.

Regards,
Shodan